“The whole dissident idea attracts a lot of crazies. And then all of a sudden, without realizing it, you've become one of them." Peter Duesberg, 2009

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Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy

Seeking Stories of AIDS Denialism

Have you or someone you know been harmed by AIDS Denialism? If you, or someone you care about, have been advised to stop taking HIV meds, ignore HIV test results, purchase a 'natural' cure etc., please email me.

"Kim is deteriorating rapidly and there is little hope left. As of now, she can still recognize people, but it seems this will not last long. Her delusions are getting worse. ...The dissident movement owes her a lot, and we can't afford to forget what she did for all of us."

It is fair to say that the 'AIDS Dissident Movement' owes Kim Bannon nothing less than her life.

In April 1992, at the age of 29, Kim Bannon tested HIV positive. She was diagnosed at her local health department after learning that she may have been exposed to herpes. Kim was referred to a well known HIV/AIDS specialist, Dr. Donna Sweet of the Kansas University School of Medicine who described her diagnosis as "indisputable" and "classic". Dr. Sweet told Kim that without proper treatment she would develop the full spectrum of AIDS within five to seven years and die soon thereafter.

But Kim is a rebel. A free thinker who unfortunately found what she was looking for - a way out. Seeking AIDS information on the Internet, Kim read that HIV tests are invalid and that HIV may not even exist at all. Kim believed what they said. She believed what she wanted to hear. She soon fell into a sea of convincing propaganda by AIDS Denialists from Perth Australia.

Kim ignored her test results and refused treatment. And here we are today. Kim has AIDS. She is indeed gravely ill.

Kim Bannon has told her own story. Here she describes how she became an AIDS Denialist.

In April of 1992 I was twenty-nine years old. I was a well-respected business woman and an accomplished freelance court reporter in Wichita. I traveled frequently for business as well as pleasure. I spent a lot of time at the gym and in outdoor sports, and I took good care of my diet. I was attractive, healthy, intelligent, successful and energetic. Even though I’d been seeing a certain young man exclusively for a few months, I referred to myself as “happily single”. I was financially and spiritually independent, and my sense of well being was off the charts.

Then the certain young man in my life, Don, went to the local county health department for a sore he thought might be herpes. When he told me the nurses there had confirmed it as herpes, I thought the responsible thing to do would be to find out if I had it as well. At the health department, I was told that since I didn’t have a sore that could be cultured, they could not test me for herpes; but how would I like to have an AIDS test? They were offering it to everyone these days.

I was embarrassed and confused. I felt that a refusal of this AIDS test would be tantamount to a confession of illicit drug use or promiscuity. I had heard that anyone can get AIDS, but I still felt I was in a very low risk group. I agreed to the test and was told to come back in a week for my results.

A week later, I sat in the waiting area for two hours waiting to get my results. I was finally taken to a private exam room by two women. They apologized for making me wait for so long and then explained that the reason for my wait was because they were trying to figure out how to handle the situation. My test was positive. Almost everyone who tests positive is either gay or on drugs or suspects they are positive for some reason. Here I was a heterosexual female, non-drug user, non-prostitute, and I was really giving them a problem.

Then they told me it was just a “screening” test, which was called an ELISA. They said I was not in any risk group, and it would most likely turn out to be negative when I was given the “confirmatory” test. They wanted to know if I’d been recently pregnant, but they didn’t inform me of anything else that could cause a false positive result.......

On April 18, 2002, a friend of mine emailed a link to Nexus Magazine, asking me to check out an article about the benefits of coconut oil. As I scanned the magazine index for the title, I noticed another article entitled “The Yin and Yang of HIV”, and I clicked on it. It was long, it was technical, it was heavily referenced and footnoted. I decided to print it out after reading only a few paragraphs, and settled myself onto the sofa in the lodge to study it.

I emerged from the sofa several hours later in a state of amazement. I began with my friends at the Ranch, telling them what I had found. Then I emailed Dr. Valandar Turner of the Perth Group who had written the article, and at last I started searching the web. I could do nothing but read for hours and hours each day all of this enormous volume of information which confirmed the suspicions I had had about my own supposed “diagnosis” as well as giving support to the holes I perceived in the prevailing AIDS dogma.

Since that time I have done a tremendous amount of research into this subject, first for the purposes of my own health, then in outrage, and finally in an effort to help as many people as I can who find themselves in a similar situation as myself. Now, more than twelve years after my diagnosis, I remain healthy and have never taken any AIDS medications.

Kim became so convinced that her HIV diagnosis was meaningless, she launched a lawsuit against the companies that manufacture HIV antibody tests. Kim's law suit brought her increased attention from AIDS Denialists.

Kim followed the path of AIDS Denialism all the way to the poor house. She spent everything she had on acupuncture, Chelation Therapy, Meta-Physical Therapies, and Scientology. Kim lost nearly everything in her pursuit of fake cures and quackery. Kim is not the first person to live the contradiction of seeking natural cures for a disease that she believes does not exist.

Ultimately, Kim was featured in the AIDS Denialist film House of Numbers. The film was shot in 2006 when Kim appeared healthy. But Kim was not healthy.

Within two years of appearing in House of Numbers, Kim's condition deteriorated and she developed AIDS. Indeed, three people featured in House of Numbers have since died of AIDS.

AIDS Denialists are now scrambling to explain Kim's declining health, especially because of her portrayal in House of Numbers. While Kim's family and doctors try to treat her HIV infection, the AIDS Denialists have other suggestions.

Celia Farber, for example, has written "It is clear she need (sic) intense and radical brain rehabilitation, and treatment for severe trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, brain injury, and over medication with HIV drugs and psych drugs."

The "Life Vessel Package" includes 'one Life Vessel Series of one hour on the first day, two hours on the second day and one hour on the third day. One Asyra to determine areas of stress in the body, and one Evox for emotional clearing" for a mere $895.

Another AIDS Denialist, Henry Bauer (also the leading authority on the existence of the Loch Ness Monster) cheers for Kim refusing HIV treatment.

"Quite often I wonder how many other healthy women have been subjected to the same sort of ordeal that Onnie experienced for years and managed to survive. We know of Kim Bannon,Maria Papagiannidou, Audrey Serrano,Karri Stokely."

While Kim suffers full blown AIDS, Denialists are lying and denying. They are saying that Kim has health problems, but not caused by HIV.

AIDS Denialist Christine Maggiore did the same thing when David Pasquarelli died of AIDS. Maggiore said it had been the stress of jail that killed him. When Christine Maggiore died of AIDS, Denialist Celia Farber said it must have been a 'radical detox' that killed her. Other AIDS Denialists said that Christine Maggiore could not handle the stress of watching a Law Order SVU episode that portrayed her story of AIDS Denialism. That is right, they said she died from watching a Law and Order episode. AIDS Denialists die of anything, except AIDS.

The same AIDS Deniers are claiming that Kim is weak minded and unable to cope with stress.

They are....

Lying about her past and present life situation.

Saying that she was abused and traumatized, and that is why she is ill.

Implying that she is weak and unable to cope with stress.

Claiming that HIV medications have caused her to become ill.

Kim's condition would be quite different if she had accepted treatment for her HIV infection. Tragically, and with the encouragement of AIDS Denialists, Kim Bannon refused treatment.

How have the AIDS Denialists contributed to Kim's deteriorating health? Kim's friend explained on her Facebook Page.

I have been friends with Kim since 3rd grade, best friends.......she was always a Daddy's girl.......ALWAYS......everyone was jealous of their relationship, they were so close....Kim worked for her Father and things became tense and Kim removed herself from him and was involved in Scientology, at this time she also removed herself from our friendship, only to call a year later and acted like nothing had happened........this was Kim's personality......still is.......She and her Father are close again, they are Best Friends..... A little insight......I stayed with Kim many weekends when she was living at her parents home.......so her parents could get away from the 24 hr care......Kim required constant care......and she wasn't always, uhm, cooperative, she can be VERY difficult........I was with them when they made the decision to let her go to the AID's hospital in KC (that she wanted to go to) this was very difficult for them.......I received calls from both of them, they were in constant turmoil.....this was their baby,they couldn't put her into assisted living........it had taken toll on them and their health......they simply couldn't care for her any longer. And she certainly made it clear that she would never move back to their home. Ironically, she now asks me to talk her parents into letting her move back home......... Kim and I spoke for hours and she wanted me to tell her story.....She wanted me to help her write something to the effect of......The second chapter.......living with AID's, she was taking the meds and she was improving, I witnessed this, she was strong, she still had what my son called her "6pack", she was still going to the gym and working out with a personal trainer........she was eating all natural stuff.....(that made me want to gag).......she was improving..........her mind was good, we did a lot of talking about Non HIV AID's, she admitted at this point that she had Aid's.........her counts were doing good........everything was good.........she did have the neuropathy which she had started showing signs in 2007....she had to be fed because of her arms trembling.......we laughed, we cried...we remembered the old days......She felt the drugs were saving lives.......This was July

Denialists started calling and she got off the meds......I stayed with her one night, home health had been there til I got there.......she was delusional, she said the devil was on her arms and yelled for him to "Be Gone".......it got worse quickly.......This was Sept or Oct.......This is when she started speaking of the dentist and was in denial again......

Kim Bannon's story is chillingly similar to that of Lambros Papantoniou. Lambros died of AIDS. He too bought into AIDS Denialism. He was persuaded by AIDS Denialists to refuse treatment. His friends are vocal about the role AIDS Denialist Andrew Maniotis played in Lambros' death. (see April 5, 2010 repost below) Maniotis is said to have gone so far as to actually talk with Lambros' doctors, telling them not to treat Lambros for HIV/AIDS. Instead, he wanted Lambros to go to Germany for an intensive nutritional treatment that would supposedly cure him of his ailments. Sound familiar?

AIDS Denialism is at its worst when it hooks those who are most vulnerable and sells them a bill of self-promoting false information that ultimately kills.

There is a lot of talk about the 340,000 South Africans who died at the hands of AIDS Denialists. But how many Kim Bannons and Lambros Papantonious are there?

No one knows. But 300,000 deaths from denialism is sounding like a small number.

120 comments:

Amazing post!What criminals! I wonder how many more victims of Maniotis are out there. I have heard that Crowe actively convinces people to stop taking their medications. These people are scum and should be held accountable for what they are doing.

My heart aches for Kim, her family, and her friends. It is bad enough when accidents happen to loved ones. But when fine people are deliberately lead astray by the type of propaganda put out by the Perth group and others, it is even sadder.

Well they say that HIV develops into full blown AIDS in about 12 years and Kim Bannon tested positive 18 years ago. People who misunderstand the Perth Group may not realize that even they acknowledge that a positive result can mean something is amiss in the body. However, the viral hypothesis is deeply flawed and for every dissident who has died, probably about 100 on the meds (about 15,000 a year in the USA) have died. This isn't because so many more are on the meds: in 2006, of 1.1M HIV+ Americans, only about 1/4 were on them with a high proportion of deaths being from side effect.

Very depressing reading. Sadly there are more people out there who are entangled in this web of deception and malice, blithely dabbling in wacky alternative therapies while their bodies are destroyed by HIV/AIDS. They may look healthy to the untrained eye but the CD4 counts and other clinical markers tell another story.

I find it particularly cruel and depressing that the denialists got to her again when it seemed she was turning a corner. What's in it for them ? Another death statistic while they carry on as before enticing other people to fall for their propaganda ?

Well perhaps one day a parent or loved one will attempt some kind of action in the courts and that will bring these people to justice. In the UK we can file civil actions for manslaughter and murder ...

What a great and tragic read at the same time Seth.Thank you for keeping this blog so updated.I dont have words for the anger i feel against those behind AIDS-denialism,people like Henry Bauer,Peter Duesberg and Andrew Maniotis.To be honest i feel that they do belong in jail and i hope some day that the courts will do something about this matter.But at same time its important to not feel anger against the victims of their fraud.People like Maggiore and Bannon plus many many more are just that - victims of Henry Bauer,Peter Duesberg and Andrew Maniotis.I just pity them.

JB, Care to back up those stats with references? I thought not. The "viral hypothesis" as you put it is not "deeply flawed". Rather it is your understanding of HIV and virology that is flawed. No one with any sort of understanding of virology would take the idiots of the Perth group seriously. Those that do take them seriously, I suspect, are those who would also readily accept anything else that already fits their preconceived notions regardless of the source. Of course this post isn't about rehashing the same errors that denialists will spout out over and over again (and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future). It is about yet another person with HIV following the denialist cult and suffering the very tragic and predictable consequences. How many "healthy" HIV+ denialists featured in HON? How many of them have died since it came out?

Seth wrote: "NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO MISINFORM THESE DECISIONS" and this is correct from a moral or ethical point of view. But lawyers tell me that it is not correct from a legal point of view. It is illegal to tell lies about many types of financial information, but legal to tell lies about medical information. A professor of economics could be fired for teaching students that "make money fast" scams are legal, of jailed for running his own Ponzi scheme, but Peter Duesberg will not loose his tenure at UC Berkeley for telling lies about retroviruses.

It is also important to note that the legality of telling lies depends on where the lie is told. Saying something in private or in a blog on the internet does not follow all the rules and laws that apply to saying something in a court of law or in an NIH grant application. While it may be unethical to tell HIV infected people (and others) that all retroviruses are completely harmless, it is legal to do so on the radio or on the internet, according to what lawyers have told me.

JB's 'stats' are in fact probably not far off; as far as they go. More AIDS patients die of side effects these days for the same reason that when women stopped dying in childbirth more of them started dying of breast cancer and heart disease. The missing factor is of course that they are on average living longer post diagnosis than they used to. And they die of side effects because the drugs, although they improve life expectancy, aren't perfect and aren't a cure.

Same thing with the ARVs and most AIDS patients who die having taken ARVs. Like pneumonia and antibiotics. The sicker you are with a disease the more likely you are to be on medication. And no medication effectively treats everyone. So even if for every dissident who's died there are 100 people on ARVs who have died, the missing factor is that people on ARVs outnumber dissidents by what 1000:1? 10000:1? Plus if one reads the dissident message boards it is clear that even dissidents, when they become very ill, often end up taking ARVs and justify it to themselves by telling themselves and each other that they aren't antiretrovirals but antivirals or anti bacterial agents.

You guys are asking way too much of JB. Evidence? References? Backing up what he says? Unless it is on the Rethinking AIDS/Virus Myth websites you can forget it. Bill has proved that point... Duesberg/Bauer/Crowe/Rasnick spit this crap into JB's mouth and he vomits it back. That is about it.

Denial is Deadly,You may be right about liability, but I am anxious to test this out in court. My attorneys say that a legal opening may be misrepresentation.

You may be able to say what you like about health and medicine, but it depends on how you present yourself.

Crowe tells his friends not to take medications, but he is presenting himself as a guy who never advanced beyond freshman biology..anyone dumb enough to listen to Crowe is helpless.

But what about when Maniotis, PhD tells family physicians that he is Dr. Maniotis who has been involved in the care of Lambros for years. Or when Maniotis tells family members that he is doctor with expertise relevant to their loved one's case?

Or when Peter Duesberg represents himself as an HIV expert when he has no experience working with HIV.

And Henry Bauer who would not know a population estimate if it crawled out of ear, but presents himself as an epidemiologist.

Rasnick seems to be the only AIDS Denialist scientist who does not misrepresent himself. He is a paranoid personality disordered sociopath no matter what or where.

See how Rasnick completely refutes JB's statistical claims at the Rethinking AIDS Conference.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAw7oot55tY

I doubt that I am libel for representing myself as a student of public health. But I welcome efforts to try...

Anonymous, you sound like you have been listening to Henry the Nessie Guy Bauer. Has anyone died of HIV treatment side-effects? Do you mean adverse reactions? Or do you mean conditions like renal failure and liver cancer that are linked to long term HIV infection, not HIV meds?

So what is Kim Bannon dying of? She developed AIDS dementia before she started HIV meds. When she stopped HIV meds she did not get better, she has gotten worse.

Can any AIDS Denier please address the subject of this post, Kim Bannon?

I'll address something..two things really. One, you are wrong about HIV drugs not causing renal failure. They can and do. You also claim that chelation therapy is quackery. That in itself is funny to me because chelation therapy is one of the only things that controls certain diseases such as Wilson's Syndrome ( an inherited disorder that makes it hard for the body to metabolize copper)Without chelation therapy, the copper accumulates in the body causing neuro symptoms just like Kim had ( and I know because I knew her) The symptoms that Kim had were as follows: Problems speaking,(her voice was shaky and sometimes it was hard for her to speak) Mood swings ( often went from very calm to very agitated easily) she had neuromotor skill difficulties. She also had something else that no one paid attention to(even though I tried to call their attention to it). She had copper colored deposits in her eyes that seemed to be indicative of Kayser Fleischer rings which are copper deposits that are found in the corneas. Wilson's also causes brain swelling because of the copper being deposited in and irritating the brain itself. On a MRI this swelling is commonly taken as encephalitis (which is what she was told she had). Strange thing is that viral encephalitis does not respond to chelation therapies, however when Kim had chelation treatments , hers did respond to it. Not only that but she called me on the phone after starting these treatments and there was a remarkable improvement to her voice. She talked normally and without hesitation. Needless to say, she was very excited about getting her voice back. Later on when she wasn't taking the treatments, her voice regressed. Dementia is also a common side effect from Wilson's Disease. Unfortunately, she was never tested for this to my knowledge Regardless of what anyone believes about HIV, it is a fact (and neither side can deny it) that HIV test are far from perfect and other diseases have caused false positives on these tests as well as there being false negatives. I find the fact that no one that Kim was ever with (including her ex-husband) ever tested positive for HIV a basis to question her diagnosis. The obvious fact that Kim lived for 19 years with no ARVs also was a good enough reason to suspect another health problem besides AIDS. If she had HIV, then where the hell did it come from? The fact also remains that NO diagnostic test is 100% accurate and that includes HIV tests. Did Kim have Wilson's Disease? I guess we will never know now and to me that is tragic. I'm certainly not telling people on her what to think, but I am saying that when it comes to the field of medicine, don't put your all your eggs in one basket...I think history has taught us that.

I should be more careful in my wording. What I'm saying is that the causes of death in AIDS patients appear to have changed over the years and that more AIDS patients MAY be dying from effects caused by long term exposure to ARVs. There are certainly studies linking long term exposure to ARVs to increased incidence of cancer. Is that because long term exposure to ARVs is a risk factor or because long term exposure to ARVs is an indicator of more severe disease? I don't think one can necessarily separate out those two possibilities.

Great post. I just think you were too easy on Saint Farber. She needs to be sued for libel and slander of the Bannon family and Maniotis needs to be held accountable for his part in Lambros' death and the ill health of Kim.

Unfortunately, Maniotis is too egotistical to be able to accept responsibility and Farber is such an emotionally stunted person she can not adequately process legitimate emotions.JTD

If Seth Kalichman wishes to contest my figures for 2006 and post some of his own, I'll be pleased to give (orthodox) sources. As it is, it's pretty telling that the emotionality on this blog is backed by ignorance.

Has anyone ever said that ARVs are perfect or without long term side effects? That would be untrue. But they certainly do more good than harm. AIDS Denialists say the medicine is worse than the disease, and that is not the case. Even if ARVs do increase cancer risk, which I do not believe has been shown, the risks would have to be weighed against the certain decline of immune function and AIDS. That is what informed decision making is all about. Too bad AIDS Deniers are around or maybe Kim Bannon would have made a more rational decision.

Seth, just what would constitute an informed decision not to take ARV's or to delay starting treatment?

If I listen to the orthodoxy I am told that they are wonderdrugs with minimal side effects. And now I see that both the Washington and San Francisco health departments are advocating starting ARV therapy on diagnoses regardless of health status. This even though the federal panel that considered this voted exactly 50/50 on the issue and many mainstream doctors have criticised this move. There is seemingly little consensus within the medical community on exactly when to start treatment.

Conversely if I listen to any of the so called "Denialists" according to you I am being fed a total load of crap and destined to die miserably.

Where is the rational mid ground regarding treatment? I know you would say refer to my Doctor, but what if he/she is of the pro treat early camp? Get a second opinion? if I kept doing that I'd end up with the 50/50 split again.

Are the drugs toxic? again there is such a wide variety of opinions from Todds totally harmless view based on his own experience, so much so that he denies AZT toxicity, to instant death Crowe. At least you appear moderate and realistic on this point.

I have seen you say that everyone and every situation is different which is something I do believe in. However until the orthodoxy can get its act together and all speak from the same page, I'll reserve my right to have a healthy dose of skepticism. Unfortunately taking a mid point seems to subject one to Bush type politics on both sides.

The history of EVERY single HIV+ denialist that dies from rare life-threatening opportunistic infections is quickly revised. Farber has claimed that Kim Bannon was "abused" by her father and that life of abuse has taken its toll. Per close friends of Kim (who've known her since childhood, see her weekly and care for her), nothing could be further from the truth. Kim and her father have always had a close and loving relationship. As their only daughter, Kim was the princess of her parents.

And, yes, Christine Maggiore died from the stress an episode of Law & Order. Pasquerelli died from the stress of 6 months in prison. Gee, how do people survive in prison for 20+ years WITHOUT ever suffering life-threatening opportunistic infections, never mind dying from one?

Why doesn't Celia Farber do this community one parting favor. Film the results of a rapid HIV test at a testing site with Maria Papagiannidou. After finding Farber negative for HIV and Papagiannidou positive, Celia should draw a tube of blood from Maria's arm and inject it into herself. Two months later, the two can return to same testing site and film the results of both tests. As Farber WILL then be positive for HIV, she can do a service to the rest of the HIV+ denialist community by having her viral load and CD4 counts tracked every 3 months so we can bear witness to what happens to her.

Thanks, Seth, for posting this. I had never heard of Kim until a few weeks ago (I haven't seen that movie and I haven't been that involved in keeping up with the denialist world all that much). But I guess I saw a mention of her from one of the comments on one of your other blog entries -- and discovered the Facebook prayer page for her (which maybe doesn't seem to exist any longer?).

It made me so sad and angry to see yet another person needlessly dying. Makes me feel very helpless. She does not need to be dying, and as a person who almost died from aids/hiv denial, it really strikes close to home. What's happening to Kim could very easily have happened to me -- I'm just lucky I got medical care and started on the meds in the nick of time.

It's hard for me to accept it's ever too late, but I guess it is in her case? It's so frustrating. And, yes, it's absolutely insane how the people on the denialists forums are twisting this every which way possible in order for her illness to be ANYTHING but the obvious.

I can't excuse the people who are denialists who haven't tested positive, but I have total compassion for the people IN denial, since I was there once (thank you Seth for making that distinction in your book). When you really, really want a way out, and someone is offering that, it's hard to blame anyone for falling for it. I just wish there was still some hope for her.

Once their flagrant misinformation is exposed in a court of law and the resulting damage, the jury can award a settlement that strips them of every cent they have. That will teach them to watch their lies!

The role of immune surveillance in actively preventing cancer is increasingly well-recognized and immune deficiency has been shown in large studies to increase the risk of most cancers:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17617273

The *relative* incidence of "non-AIDS defining" cancers has increased compared to "AIDS-defining" cancers but the only study I know of that suggested an increase in the incidence of a cancer was this one which reports an increase in anal cancer diagnoses in the period 1999-2004 vs 1992-1996:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18525266

It's based on 132 cases out of 86,322 people, the hazard ratio for the comparison of the two time periods is 2.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.2-5.3. Data from the same cohort showed that the risk of anal cancer increased with the time during which the CD4 count was less than 200 cells per microL (1.3 per year, 1.2-1.5; p=0.0001), and viral load was greater than 100 000 copies per mL (1.2 per year, 1.1-1.4, p=0.005).

The claim that most people with HIV are dying from ARV side effects is total BS. The same inflammatory biomarkers that correlate with serious illness and mortality in the elderly and acutely ill (e.g. IL-6, D-Dimer) are significantly higher in untreated people with HIV compared to uninfected people and the odds ratios for the association between these biomarkers and illness and mortality in SMART are unprecedented:http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050203

This article provides a good overview:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2679976/?tool=pubmed

"Now with fewer AIDS deaths we have of course observed an increase in the proportion of deaths due to non-AIDS causes, however, this does not mean to say that there has been an increase in the rate of non-AIDS – quite the reverse in fact."

@Confused There is no such thing as "the orthodoxy", there are just thousands of virologists, medical doctors, epidemiologists, and others with varying interpretations of the data which mostly shows that starting treatment earlier is better than later for the majority of HIV infected people. However, minimal side effects is not the same as no side effects, and thus it is not a good idea to take a "one size fits all" approach and insist that every HIV infected person start therapy at the same time.

Every person in unique, and it is best to take as many factors into account as possible, unfortunately including economic considerations such as insurance and the cost of various drugs, when deciding the best course of action.

There are codes of ethics, and laws, prohibiting real doctors from telling lies about medications, for example to falsely claim that one drug has fewer side effects than another. There are apparently no laws prohibiting AIDS denialists from claiming that antiretorvirals cause AIDS, even if that is blatantly false.

One aspect of the story that has not been fully revealed is the extent to which Andrew Maniotis and Clark Baker have harassed Kim Bannon's parents, including over the Christmas holiday period. Incessant phone calls and emails have added insult to injury. Also, even after senior academics at his university asked him to cease and desist in contacting the family, out of common humanity and respect for their grief, Maniotis kept on with the harassment.

It's yet another sad aspect of the immorality of AIDS denialism. I hope the family takes legal action.

How many doctors were prosecuted for prescribing Vioxx, Avandia, Baycol, Bextra or Dexfenfluramine? In fact how many doctors have been prosecuted for prescribing any drugs?

Zero

Isn't it a fact that as long as it is licensed by the FDA you can prescribe it right up until the drug is recalled, even when the literature is full of adverse events and lawsuits are flying around.

Personally I'd be happy to see someone attempt to sue a Denialist for giving advice. Because at that point you'd have to prove your argument as opoposed to previous trials of HIV spreaders who have had to defend a position. I doubt we'll see it in the near future no matter how much posturing goes on in this and other blogs.

Denial-is-deadly. With all due respect I cannot rationalise your comments about everyone being unique and not taking a one size fits all approach when your name is hyper linked to a study from Weill Cornell which uses a computer simulation to predict the cost/risk benefits of starting ARV treatment earlier.

As they say with computers, "Garbage in = Garbage out".

The reliance on simulations in epidemiologic scenarios is at best of dubious value.

@Confused While it is true that garbage in results in garbage out, it is not always true that all computer simulations result in garbage. The study I linked to was published in 2003, before enough time had elapsed since the beginnings of studies of large cohorts of patients treated early and late, to use actual data. Now that actual data is available, the results confirm that starting antiretroviral therapy BEFORE a patient's CD4+ T-cell count drops below 200 is beneficial. See for example:

But the better recommendations come from considering other factors in addition to CD4+ T-cell count, such as coinfection with HCV, CD4+/CD8+ ratio, viral load, rate of CD4+ T-cell count decline, cardiovascular disease risk, and onset of HIV-associated nephropathy. See for example:

ConfusedIt is better to be confused than a true Denialist Believer. It may not be too late for you.

To answer your question, I do believe you can make a rational well-informed decision to defer, delay, or refuse treatment for HIV. If informed, you have to consider the potential for viral resistance and the long term implications of resistance. You have to consider medications in the pipeline and what current treatment may mean for your future options. You have to decide whether you can be adherent to the medications to get their full benefit and avoid resistance. You may decide to refuse treatment because you want to die with your partner rather than go on without him/her. You may refuse treatment because you want to stay close to God and not put any chemicals in your body...

Who knows.

What I am saying, is that when properly informed by the latest medical science those are all legitimate decisions.

But deciding to refuse treatment because HIV is harmless, is misinformed. Or because an HIV test is meaningless, is misinformed. Or because HIV may not exist is misinformed. Or because Nessies can protect us from AIDS, is misinformed.

The deliberate spread of medical misinformation is why Kim Bannon is dying. It is what those who spread misinformation should be held accountable. It is why if I were Kim Bannon's family, I would definitely sue these people.

I have posted figures in the past, even tutoring the ubiquitous "Snout" on them. The fact is, I shouldn't have to: they should be common knowledge, as they clearly indicate that so-called HIV/AIDS is not anywhere near the 100% lethal disease if not treated it is commonly believed to be. Before I do post them, please state whether you even have any idea as to prevalence and how many people are receiving treatment. I won't do your homework for you. It's shameful that such ardently-held opinions are so poorly substantiated. Also, the obvious discomfort manifested here regarding my figures shows how problematic the whole official paradigm is.

JB, the reason that you have to post your figures is unless people know where you got them from, they can't tell whether you are a) misrepresenting or b) misinterpreting what you've read. But for starters, as I've never read anywhere, at least in the scientific/medical literature, anything saying that HIV/AIDS is 100% lethal, I think you're off to a bad start.

John Bleau specializes in the denialist sub-discipline of idiotic extrapolation. Henry Bauer is the leading proponent of this technique. Mr. Bleau's idea of what the numbers he is referring to "clearly indicate" is based on his own ignorance and inability to actually think through what he is claiming.

@Confused in the UK we're recommending starting treatment before CD4 hits 350. There's been a lot of discussion around starting sooner than that. Based on the some of the studies I've seen in aidsmap.com and I think cited above, if my CD4 were 500 today and I would start on meds.

As it happens I'm not in a position to make that call now because I started meds 3 years ago, my having CD4 bumped along the bottom for about 4 years around the 300-350 mark prior to that. My doctor wanted me to hold off until better meds were through phase III trials, so I did (i.e I avoided AZT/3TC etc and went on to tenofovir/FTC.)

JB, if you have posted the science that backs up your claims elsewhere, can you please provide at least links to those posts? It would be informative to see, not to mention hilarious to see Snout tear you apart.Please?

HAHAHAHA!!! Now Clark Baker has started the "HIV Innocence Project" where he states:

"HIV tests do not detect HIV. AIDS drugs cause cancer and kill. Many HIV drugs contain drugs like Sustiva (Efavirenz), a highly addictive hallucinogen that can produce long term psychological and physical injuries."

OMSJ’s HIV Innocence Project provides legal, medical and scientific expertise to attorneys whose clients face HIV-related prosecution. Because of the technical nature of these cases and the volume of misinformation and pharmaceutical propaganda pushed by the CDC and NIH, there is little information for prosecutors, defense attorneys and courts that can be helpful to these cases.

OMSJ provides services to attorneys and defendants throughout North America and Europe and can be the difference between a long prison sentence and freedom.

Just when you think Baker couldn't get any more bat-shit crazy and narcissistic - He bests himself!!!!

"The dismissal of HIV charges is part of a growing trend since OMSJ began to assist defendants in criminal HIV cases. In this 2009 case, Florida prosecutors reduced their initial offer of 15 years in state prison to five days of unsupervised probation.

“We expect this trend to continue,” says OMSJ Director Clark Baker. “While the AIDS industry has convinced Americans of the alleged AIDS epidemic, prosecutors have a hard time finding anyone willing to promote their propaganda under penalty of perjury.”

John Bleu first stated:"...for every dissident who has died, probably about 100 on the meds (about 15,000 a year in the USA) have died."

And much later states that this figure "should be commone knowledge." And chastises the orthodox for having "ardently held opinions so poorly substantiated." Hypocrite much?

You can't be pissed off for making a completely unsubstantiated comment when others ask for, well, er, huh, to substantiate that claim! And then state that others do not substantiate their claim that AIDS is 100% lethal. UHM, again, that is YOUR claim and again is UNSUBSTANTIATED. It is the Denialists who claim that the orthodox say AIDS is 100% lethal, when, in FACT since HAART has been so successful, now HIV is considered a chronic manageable disease by the orthodox!!

So stop making your unsubstantiated claims and back it up or shut up! That's my suggestion to you, John Bleau.JTD

Anybody knows how Karri Stockley is doing? Last time I heard she had 70 T-cells left and in amazing shape...Shit!!! I thought people suppose to die with T-cells of that count, have full-blown AIDS and she's not even on meds.

The pin up girl the denlialists parade in front of the media ... well her CD4 count is way down, she didn't lt on what ge VL was. And I can't remember her cd4/cd8 percentage.

She does a lot of harm simply as a "healthy looking", motherly figurehead of the movement. She's very keen to get people to follow her "amazing" journey. Its the deceptive and ugly face of denying your own fate.

It must be all those tibetan yack flower colon cleanses she's been doing...Despite all those colon cleanses and tibetan yack flower detoxes. Perhaps its the kinetic radon therapy chamber in quackville, Alaska that is really working its magic ? Who knows, the orthodox view can't explain her continued excellent health.

Karri Stokely does not follow her CD4 counts. The last count she had 2+ years ago was 90.Even though she cashes her disability check she gets due to her AIDS Diagnosis which she happily admits, she claims to be in perfect health. She just does not have the integrity to get her lazy ass to work!JTD

Anonymous, I haven't heard how Karri is doing but just because she looks to be "in amazing shape" does not mean that she is. Looks can be deceiving. Look at the examples of Maggiore and Kim. They looked to be "in amazing shape" in HON, too. You should have learned by now that parading low CD4 denialists who refuse treatment as examples of how "healthy" they are tends to backfire. To answer your question, however, there is no universal set point at which a person MUST develop AIDS and die when it comes to CD4 counts. Some people develop OIs with a CD4 count of 70, some at 100, some at 4. If you can't' understand something this simple then what possible hope can you have to understand the more complex issues about HIV?

John,"as they clearly indicate that so-called HIV/AIDS is not anywhere near the 100% lethal disease if not treated it is commonly believed to be."

HIV is not 100% lethal, even if untreated. Some individuals have genetic variations that can influence the amount of time for progression. Others seem to be protected completely. This is true of most viral diseases (for an example look at rabies). It is simply the interplay of host vs pathogen fitness that we call evolution. Mainstream science is not disputing this and the fact that you would claim such a thing merely shows how much you blindly rely on denialst sites without bothering to actually do some questioning. Very sad.

Yep, Clark Baker, champion of justice and all around good guy! So how many old men did he beat up before the LAPD canned him?

Clark is an asscrack. There is something wrong with anyone who listens to anything he says.

And that brings us to Karri and Joe Stokely. Comparing them to Christine Maggiore and Kim Bannon is right on target. We can only hope they will snap out of denial before it is too late for them. It is important to distinguish Duesberg-Bauer-Rasnick-Mullis and the other 'Scientists' gone off the deep end from those they misinform... Maggiore-Bannon-Stokely.

I think this should be highlighted as the EXACT type of DEADLY behavior that the lies of the denialists accept. Clearly, this scumbag felt comfortable expressing his true intentions in the cesspool of denialist forums. I hope you perhaps feel it necessary to highlight this horror in an upcoming post.

It is interesting how he says "everything is so cool 'except for this one bit' on HIV". What a minimizing piece of narcissistic shit. He would potentially give a horrible virus to someone he supposedly cares for because he is so delusional? This shows the brainwashing power of denialist morons...------------------------------------------------From user Dissidentsg at QA :

Hi all,

I've been dating this girl lately and everything is going well until we hit an area that we both do not agree on - "HIV testing".

She has asked me to go for the tests because she wants to be sure that I am clean. She has also expressed that she will love to have unprotected sex with me and that only by testing "negative", can she really "let herself go" and enjoy love making with me. Currently our intimacy is quite limited (yes, no oral too!) and "stressful" as she is not relaxed enough to enjoy. She also quoted that her past bfs have all gone for the tests and proven negative.

I have tried speaking to her about our alternative beliefs but it just can't click for her. She is a very firm believer of the Orthodoxy's. It doesn't help that the fact she used to work as a volunteer in the AIDS organisation over here.

The test she is pushing me to do is an anonymous one using OraQuick. And, she wants to accompany me so she can hear the results for herself.

So guys, should I do it? Anyway to trick the system? The last time I tested was 4yrs ago to which results led me to where I am now. She tells me she does not understand why am I so afraid of the tests! Sheesh, I really don't have the heart to tell her why. She did mention that if I do register positive now, she won't leave me (but that's a "yeah, right", we all know that)! How can a relationship go on without any form of intimacy!

So please give me some suggestions on what to do guys. I'll appreciate it a lot!

Everything between me and her is just so cool except for this one bit on HIV.

One more AWESOME laugh at Clarkie asscrack Baker. The latest post on his site in response to someone criticizing him:---------------AIDS Clinicians and university professors (like Cornell's John Moore PhD and Harvard's David Kuritzkes MD) have good reason to be nervous about testifying in a court where OMSJ's lawyers and scientists are taking notes. Unlike the pharmaceutical industry and corrupt scientific journals like SCIENCE, courts take a dim view of perjury. Ms. Finkelstein doth protest too much, methinks.---------------

He says his post office box of Medical and "scientific" justice has "lawyers and scientists" - BwaAHAHAHHAHAHA. He says Science is a corrupt journal!! BwaAHAHAHHA

JustAsk'n: You make a very good point. I agree that someone has the absolute right to have complete control over their own body. If Kim Bannon / Maggiore / Stokely, etc want to refuse medicine and lead themselves to an early grave - fine. The problem is when they start convincing others to do the same by spouting off false claims and nonsense and then telling people that their nonsense is credible. Now, again, if people are silly enough to listen to the blatherings of someone like Baker, fine. But in terms of Kim - there came a point where she was NOT of sound mind, and the denialists still continued to try and manipulate her into the early grave she is facing.

I think the most important facet is to use these people and the denialists as perfect examples not only of hypocrisy and lies, but also the tragic human element of basing life and death decisions on nonsense spouted via crackpots.

One thing I don't want to leave out though is that there are very real consequences of denialists behaviors on people of sound mind. They were integral mechanisms involved in denying HIV+ South Africans access to life-saving antiretrovirals, and 330,000 needless deaths ensued because of their nonsense. (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2008-releases/researchers-estimate-lives-lost-delay-arv-drug-use-hivaids-south-africa.html)

Hey - just wondering if Clarkie ever responded to the challenge of naming any of the "scientists and lawyers" who are part of his hallowed and esteemed Post Office Box of Scientific Justice. Or if he revealed any of the "30 cases" he is assisting with". Silence? That's what I thought.

Sadly, Simon Singh is now having to defend himself against our dreadful libel laws as a result of saying so. He wrote that chiropractics were saying that they could cure cancer when they couldn't. There are archives of several chiropractic websites where they used to say so. I forget the exact words he used, it wasn't as subtle as "erroneous" and not as blatant as "charlatans", though you can make up your own mind about which you or I would choose.Go to "Sense about Science" website to find out more or sign up at www.libelreform.org

Sorry if this is off topic, but it's a lovely example of idiots trying to pretend there's a debate. Dara O'Brien has a nice sketch about this on Youtube.Thank you for having me.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality.

On Thusday, Sep 21, 2006, as reported in Reuters, it was announced for the first time that the probable cause of increased "HIV's infection had been found to be…..smoking cigarettes, but 9 of 10 other studies failed to find a link between smoking and progression to AIDS: LONDON (Reuters) - Smoking, already linked to several illnesses, may also increase the risk of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.In a review of studies that looked at the association between smoking and HIV, British doctors said five of the six studies they analysed showed smokers had a higher chance of becoming infected.Nine of 10 other studies in the review that tracked the progression from HIV to AIDS found no link with smoking."The studies identified in this systematic review indicate that while smoking might be independently associated with acquiring HIV infection, it does not appear to be related to progression to AIDS," said Dr Andrew Furber, of the South East Sheffield Primary Care Trust.Furber and his colleagues, who reported the findings in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, said tobacco smoke may increase susceptibility to HIV infection by modifying a variety of immune system responses.Research has shown that smoking is a leading cause of preventable death. It increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, respiratory problems, lung and other types of cancer. The researchers suggest in the study that public health measures that encourage smokers to quit could also improve the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.

In 2006, Dr. John Moore of Weil Medical College, one of the featured speakers in the 2006 International Toronto AIDS Conference described his work, and claimed that his “Hail Mary” experiments hold great promise and could solve the “AIDS apocalypse in Africa and elsewhere. He alluded to the fact that multiple inseminations with his monkeys are necessary in order to model the frequent sexual activity that goes on in these 3rd World Nations. To rigorously prove his “SIV-fighting” microbicide worked, his Hail Mary experiments involved inseminating macaques 4-5 times after smearing his microbicides on their genitals.

Why don't you post the information I sent describing how I killed all these people. Someone could accuse you of censorship, or worse.

BTW. Are you circumcised as you should be. Did you get "taken care of" by a mohel, and do remember how it felt as he stopped your bleeding?

You must be aware that those of you who are not circumcised suffer the penalty of kareit, no matter how otherwise observant they may be. Perhaps in part for this reason, circumcision is the mitzvah most likely to be observed by otherwise non-observant Jews.

Circumcision is so important that it may be performed on the Sabbath or a holiday, despite prohibitions of drawing blood on those days. Yet the ceremony may be postponed for health reasons, and then it cannot be performed until seven days after a physician has declared the child healthy. If this occurs, the rite cannot be performed on the Sabbath or holiday, because there is no longer sufficient reason to violate the general law of the holy days.

Uhhhhhh- what Schizophrenic posts above!! Why is it relevant that Fauci's dad was a pharmacist in Brookline? Why are the Jewish circumcision regulations relevant here? I suppose these posts are included as more evidence of the raving lunacies of denialists.

I find the post meaningless. Let's set aside the "alternative treatments" which have no bearing in this case other than to try to discredit her frame of mind. (In logical discourse this is known as a "red herring")

Fact a person diagnosed with some type of disease vector that is positive to an HIV test in 1992 dies in 2010. That is 18 years of life!!

If another sick individual with an unknown ailment died after 18 years NO ONE would call it AIDS. This strengthens the denialist's point. If you are diagnosed with HIV and you die, then you automatically are assumed to have died of AIDS. Sorry but that is the single most common logical error in scientific thought; confusing correlation with causation.

According to orthodox texts, the median patient takes 9-10 years to develop AIDS without treatment and then dies on average in 9 months. That is just about a 10 year life-span. It's funny, but using the same correlation logic; being a denialist seems to lengthen your longevity...

I don't pretend to have the answers, but I do have a mind trained in scientific thought and I can see a number of logical inconsistency in the traditional AIDS camp. I think the most notorious is the dramatic incease in syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases while at the same time we have had a stabalized AIDS population. The transmission mechanism is the same; clearly sexual conduct is not become safer (quite the contrary).

To all I highly recommend reading Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolution. Then remember that in 1926 Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger got the Nobel prize for proving worms caused cancer (very similar to this situation, he found a correlation between worm irritation of wounds and posterior cancer- now widely thought to ocurr because of cell damage)

Equivocation, you obviously do not have "a mind trained in scientific thought" when you say:

"According to orthodox texts, the median patient takes 9-10 years to develop AIDS without treatment and then dies on average in 9 months. That is just about a 10 year life-span. It's funny, but using the same correlation logic; being a denialist seems to lengthen your longevity..."

Your thought process has obviously not evolved since the late 80's. That "10 year life span" was the observation in the early days of HIV/AIDS. Science has discovered more since then...not only in treatment which has dramatically increased life expactancy, but also just in what we know about what happens in acute infection thru chronic infection.

If you truly want a "mind trained in scientific thought" you will learn to evolve with new discoveries, rely on facts/evidence and stop relying on old anecdotes.JTD

" I don't pretend to have the answers, but I do have a mind trained in scientific thought and I can see a number of logical inconsistency in the traditional AIDS camp."

Let’s find out if this is true as I point out the flaws of your other arguments. Tell me if you can follow the logic.

"According to orthodox texts, the median patient takes 9-10 years to develop AIDS without treatment and then dies on average in 9 months. That is just about a 10 year life-span. It's funny, but using the same correlation logic; being a denialist seems to lengthen your longevity"

Incorrect. The fact that the median time is estimated at 9-10 years indicates that some progress much faster and some progress much slower. Taking one or two denialists that progresses slower than the median and using them as the rule for denialist progression is just plain bad statistics. In fact, there are denialists that died in much shorter time. Likewise, before treatment was available, people died all the same. Again, bad logic.

"I think the most notorious is the dramatic incease in syphilis, herpes, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases while at the same time we have had a stabalized AIDS population. The transmission mechanism is the same; clearly sexual conduct is not become safer (quite the contrary). "

More bad reasoning. First, syphilis, herpes and gonorrhea transmit more readily than HIV. Secondly, cases of HIV transmission are actually on the rise in certain places (see here, here, and here. Thirdly, stabilizing AIDS (as opposed to HIV population) population is a direct result of the increased effectiveness of HAARTs. So of course there will be less people with AIDS. Better treatments = less progression to AIDS.

And lastly, “ If another sick individual with an unknown ailment died after 18 years NO ONE would call it AIDS. This strengthens the denialist's point. If you are diagnosed with HIV and you die, then you automatically are assumed to have died of AIDS. Sorry but that is the single most common logical error in scientific thought; confusing correlation with causation.”

If a person dies from " an unknown ailment" then the cause of death is unknown. However, if a person dies of symptoms characteristic of a decimated immune system (say, disseminated herpes, KS, ect…), has untreated HIV, and no other cause for said immune deficiency, it is a pretty good bet what the cause was. For some people progression to AIDS takes 6 months after exposure, for others 18+ years. Some do not appear to progress. This is what would be expected from a genetically diverse population. It applies to other viral diseases as well. It also applies to bacterial diseases. This doesn’t strengthen "the denialist's point" but rather illustrates their lack of knowledge of biology when they make such a claim. The human population is not a genetically homogeneous group. This is something denialists routinely fail to take into account.

I was going to post this comment on the Duesberg investigation thread, but it now appears to be inactive, so might be missed. So, sorry to the sensible people here if it's slightly off message.

Once the full truth of what lies behind the UCB investigation into Duesberg comes out, he's going to look even worse than he does know. Here's some not widely known points:

1) Duesberg personally wrote a formal letter of complaint to a peer reviewed journal in early 2009, accusing a well known AIDS researcher of having an undeclared conflict of interest regarding a paper that described data supportive of the use of ARVs to treat HIV infection. According to Duesberg, the results in the paper were tarnished by the senior author's alleged financial conflicts. That letter of complaint was passed to the author's university, which conducted an investigation and concluded that there was no case to answer, that Duesberg's allegations were factually inaccurate. So, when Duesberg and his friends complain that UCB is investigating him and trying to suppress his "freedom", there's a nauseating stink of hypocrisy in the air.

2) When Duesberg submitted his paper to JAIDS (the one that eventually ended up in Med Hyp), one of the reviewers specifically warned him in his or her review that a failure to declare Rasnick's commercial links to vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath could constitute misconduct (the paper, by trashing ARVs, is useful to Rath in his company's fight with ARV manufacturers for market share). Duesberg elected to ignore that advice when (temporarily) publishing his paper in Med Hyp. So he cannot argue that his failure to declare a conflict for Rasnick occurred by an oversight; it was a willful act. Moreover, although Duesberg promised in the Med Hyp paper to send the JAIDS reviews to anyone who asked for them, he has never done so. So, add foolishness, a disregard for the regulations covering publishing ethics, deceit and cowardice to the hypocrisy.

3) No scientist is allowed to egregiously misrepresent the contents of a scientific paper when citing it and commenting on it. Duesberg states in his paper that the May et al. Lancet paper claims that ARVs don't work, when in fact May et al. show exactly the opposite. That's scientific misconduct, and it's far from the only example.

4) Recall that in Time magazine last year, Duesberg was revealed to have conducted illegal animal experiments on UCB premises, by buying mice from a local pet shop (!!!) and injecting them with cancer cells. That's a breach of NIH regulations, and State and Federal law. For that alone, Duesberg should have been dismissed, just as would have happened to any bona fide researcher who behaved so flagrantly wrongly.

It's way past time UCB looked thoroughly into Duesberg and what kind of a "scientist" the man actually is.

So maybe you need to mention the fact that Gallo purposely altered a paper (his so-called original isolation paper) when it clearly shows that the person who performed the electronmicrographs on his samples clearly stated that his samples contained no virus specimens and only cellular debris. Gallo posted them anyway as his "proof" in Science....so do you not think that is evidence of scientific misconduct?...Most certainly is. Changing any scientific paper to suit your own beliefs is not only misconduct...it is highly unethical.

So much for you big bogey man of HIV, now the US Department of State has said HIV is not a disease of public significance. I guess you'll say there lack of knowledge about microbiology was at the root of this decision. Perhaps it's a denialist conspiracy. Maybe you should write to Obama to get this rescinded. I can hear your funding starting to dry up already.

Reference Document: STATE 128614, 12/09

1. SUMMARY: On November 2, the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (HHS/CDC), published a Final Rule in the Federal Register that will remove HIV infection from the list of communicable diseases of public health significance and remove references to HIV from the scope of medical examinations for aliens. The final rule will go into effect on January 4, 2010. This cable provides guidance to posts for handling cases involving HIV after January 4, 2010, and in the interim. END SUMMARY.

You all really need to start using some name to differentiate yourself...Anonymous just does not work. Make up a name like Joe Newton or something. Here is why..

Anonymous, you are right. Anonymous is so far off base it is practically delusional. The CDC and State Dept. opened the gate to dropping the federal ban on allowing HIV+ people to freely visit the US. That is where that statement appears. It is not a statement on the severity of the HIV epidemic. Within hours of President Obama undoing the crazy rule that others did not have the wisdom to undo, Secretary of State Clinton announced that the International AIDS Conference in 2012 will be in Washington DC. No one other the AIDS Denialists have claimed HIV is no longer a threat to the public health.

This comment by Anonymous is a typical Denialist Chery Picker, that ignores context and facts. Thanks for the example Anonymous and thanks for your pointing out it is just dumb shit, Anonymous!

Actually, I meant to use my proper name, Kralc Rekab. Sorry! You know, the funny thing is that if these morons are going to try and cherry pick garbage - they might as well make their filth somewhat believable! This denialist ranting is just a joke!!

Part 2:The fact that Art Reingold, a leading scientist and scholar in public health, is leading the investigation is excellent. Of course, an expert in the very area that Duesberg blathers about is the most qualified to analyze it. "Fred"s illogic above would essentially imply that people qualified in entirely different fields should review submitted work in other disciplines. It is akin to submitting a study in molecular biology and having it reviewed by a computer engineer! It is ludicrous by all accounts. Perhaps Fred would rather the investigation be led by a self-proclaimed "leader" of denialists, Clark Baker - a fired ex cop who has never taken a college class in his life and can not even define what a virus is, yet makes silly proclamations about AIDS that make no sense. He calls himself a "professional investigator." It is precisely this type of nonsense that is unfortunately facilitated by the internet. There is no room in science, medicine, or journals for these mongrels, so they resort to internet chat boards and fake papers/advertisements to peddle their brand of ignorance, and unfortunately sweep up some naive and unwitting souls in the process. The blood of Maggiore, Eliza Jane, and now Kim Bannon is on their hands. But they are so blind, ignorant, stupid, manipulative, selfish, and narcissistic (e.g. Celia Farber and Clark Baker) that they can't even see through their own bulls-*%t and keep piling it on.I think that part of their pathology lies in the fact that by acting the way they do - they assign themselves importance which in reality doesn't exist in their daily lives. You see, the denialist community is comprised of failures like Clark Baker, abject failures like Celia Farber, and psychopathic criminals (as shown in a Court of Law) like David Rasnick. They are pushed aside on a daily basis into the gutters of life, so they create a sense of pseudo-meaning in what they see as a virtual realm. The most egregiously uneducated ones like Clark Baker will claim things like "Harvard sells its degrees" to self-compensate for the fact that he was never college material himself and wasn't able to be educated - it is jealousy and resentment synergized. Then you have failed writers like Celia Farber who will claim some sort of conspiracy as opposed to realizing that her own histrionic nonsense is what shut her out of a career and drove it off a cliff - nothing else. And then there are just ego-driven homophobic racists like Peter Duesberg who lack the humility and sense to ever admit that he made a tragic mistake. He would rather drive over a cliff of nonsense than be a real man and admit error.

Seth - thanks for making that point. That is why the silly terms of "orthodoxy" and "dissent" that people like Fred (above) use are disingenuous. They want to rebrand themselves as "dissidents" to promote some fake victimization complex, when in fact they are DENIALISTS in the same vain of holocaust denialists, climate change denialists, birthers, tea-baggers, etc.

They manufacture a "debate" and proclaim that there is some sort of "controversy" which in reality, doesn't exist. The House of Garbage film is a perfect example of this propagandized filth.And then you have people like Fred (above) use terms like "religion" and imply that anyone who believes in science, peer-review, and public health is "corrupt." The corruption here lies in the morally bankrupt ignorami who pontificate absurdities with nothing to back them up other than nonsensical rhetoric. And it is that manipulative rhetoric that preys upon those most vulnerable and ends up killing them in some cases.

There is no controversy. Stop falling into the trap that the denialists want you to. If you want to understand biology, study it. If you want to know how the immune system works, read a book. Don't elevate denialist idiocy to a level and place it on a platform with anything else than the steaming pile of feces that it is.

Ok here we go.AIDS Deniers use abstracts, summaries, and cherry picked sentences to make their mischief. Anonymous, that is what you have done. So before you go call using morons, take a look in the mirror and see what you see.

From the website your pilfered...

The reference is specifically to the travel ban.

I can cherry pick my own sentence, which certainly captures the basis for the ruling...

"The CDC determined that while HIV infection is a serious health condition, it is not a communicable disease that is a significant public health risk for introduction, transmission, and spread through casual contact."

Yeah...and I've never seen where being in the field of psychology or psychiatry qualifies you to be some sort of expert on AIDS. Everything you state is nothing but an opinion and don't give us that crap that you know hundreds of virologists because that is the same as saying that someone is a hell of a mechanic because their father was. If you want to make negative comments about people that question the HIV hypothesis then you also need to be honest and mention some of the questionable things that the orthodox believers in HIV have done...namely Gallo. Just because time has passed, it does not change the fact that he purposely altered a scientific document to suit his own needs...and yes, that is a fact. You people want to keep bringing up Rasnick and saying that he had financial interests in something. ..What do you think Gallo's interests are? Sure as hell isn't science...more like ego and financial gain. Where are all these beliefs going to lead? Who the hell knows, but I know this...time will tell all...it always does.......

Ah, the courtier's reply. Same to you, buddy, go become a virologist and then we can talk! Because actually looking at the evidence virologists present, as Seth does, isn't good enough for some reason? It's like having a question about cars and asking your mechanic father about it, then you tell someone else the correct answer. What a crap argument.

Gallo could come out as a secret serial killer of neighbourhood pets tomorrow, doesn't change the fact that the theory that HIV causes AIDS has been confirmed by evidence from thousands of other scientists working in the relevant fields. It's not like he's the only scientist who ever worked on HIV/AIDS, lol. Another ridiculous argument.

Having a paper withdrawn by Elsevier should be worn like a badge of pride and vindication of truth in this matter.

It was Elsevier who commissioned no fewer than 6 bogus journals in Australia alone that were nothing but advertisements for pharmaceutical companies. Elesevier makes millions on advertisements in its mainstream journals from pharmaceutical companies. To think that the sticky hand of BIG PHARMA is not at work here is simply naive.

One of the main protagonists in the withdrawal of the offending paper was one Seth Kalichman of denyingaids infamy. Seth has stated that a part of his duties at UConn involve the running of his vitriolic blog that regularly slanders Duesberg and Bauer. UConn receive millions in grants from the NIH and BIG PHARMA to pay the salaries of the ilk of Kalichman.

The main complainant to Duesbergs university is Nathan Geffen, who is a member of AIDSTRTUH and the South African Treatment Action Campaign. TAC is funded indirectly by Anglo Gold and various Pharmaceutical Companies. Kalichman regularly quotes and praises Geffen on his blog.

They can scream hysterically all they want, but talk about conflicts of interest? Give me a break these guys are up to their armpits in conflicts of interest, they have all the moral fortitude of crack whores.

Shortly we should see the entry of J Todd Deshong and Poodle Stomper et al posting here with their own version of AIDS Dogma, vomitting back argumentoid comments and generally muddying the waters. The Emails will have already been sent out from AIDSTRUTH HQ rallying the forces to attack.

I too am no expert on the topic of HIV/AIDS but I definately know the smell of RAT. Whether Duesberg is right or wrong, he does not deserve a concerted attack driven by financial greed dressed up as public health concern.

They talk about Denialists, this lot still state AZT did not kill anyone, now that is DENIALISM, and has all the hallmarks of the tobacco companies saying smoking did not cause cancer when they were facing billion dollar damages payouts. And that surely gives the best indicator of their true masters, as none of the lawyers representing the pharmaceutical companies will permit any admission of wrongdoing from anyone on the payroll.

I think Clark Baker has coined the best term for these people, “Pharmasluts”. Apt.

To anonymous above:Hi Clark - nice to see your trademark garbage. You might as well have used your "doth protest too much" canned phrase. There is nothing wrong with receiving grants from the government for good research that benefits mankind. All research institutions do. "Rallying the forces" etc - Clark -you are only too transparent!!!As you note - you are definitely no expert on HIV/AIDS, so why not defer to the actual experts (i.e. not you, or Duesberg for that matter). There is no financial greed in calling Duesberg out for lying, misquoting, and indirectly assisting in the deaths of many people, most recently Maggiore and Kim Bannon (soon, unfortunately). The only denial going on is the denial of science by Denialists. Seeing that you just posted this on Todd's blog as well, Clarkie, I will post my response on there as well.

"The Emails will have already been sent out from AIDSTRUTH HQ rallying the forces to attack."

HAHAHAHA! Seriously? You have a very skewed sense of reality! AIDSTruth HQ (where ever they may be) doesn't send me an email every time a nut posts on Seth's blog. Heck, I don't know about you but I simply use Blogspot's "Subscribe by email" option (available to non-shills at the bottom of the page).

But hey, maybe in your little fantasy world you are so important and so influential that your anonymous posts must trigger the powers that be to command their paid minions (where's my check, by the way?) to respond lest you single handedly take down a giant global conspiracy that has somehow managed to fool hundreds of thousands of scientists and doctors around the world.

You keep thinking that ;-) The only part of your post that seems to contain any truth is when you said "I too am no expert on the topic of HIV/AIDS". At least you got one thing right.

I am a heterosexual married woman of 57 who has HIV as does my husband. My blog about our journey through HIV is here: http://hiv-and-us.blogspot.com/

And I have recently been bombarded on my personal facebook profile by an AIDs denialist who calls himself 'Ricci Davis' who has 'advised' me to stop taking my HIV ARV meds or at least give them a 'holiday' to see how well I am without the meds.

- although when challenged he will deny he has advised me this but only drawn my attention to the facts. But his dialogues with me can be plainly seen on my FaceBook profile and he has suggested I stop my meds -

Don't worry I have no intention of doing so, nor will I ever be seduced by these denialist arguments.

I know without doubt we have HIV and need the ARV meds to survive and in fact my husband had reached the point of AIDs, and was hospitalized with severe weight loss a 4 count of8 PCP pneumonia and other infections, and I was also already ill before we were diagnosed and I so I well know that without the meds we will die as my husband has already been close to death. But thankfully we are both now doing well on the HIV HAART medication.

So I have seen first hand what HIV can do.

But I just wanted to confirm how ruthless and totally uncaring of your situation theses denialists are.

This man has also suggested several of his friends become my facebook friends and they have requested that I accept them as 'friends' including Maria Papagiannidou ( her husband Gilles St-Pierre is already on my facebook profile as I accepted him by accident thinking he was a fellow HIV sufferer and he too has already tried to persuade me although not so continuously as this Ricci)

I have not accepted Maria and the others as friends as while I feel sad for them and especialy maria who has ben diagnosed HIV and I know she will eventually get ill without treatment and this is very sad to me .But I know their intention is to bombard me with their warped theories and wear me down.

But I just wanted to warn others with HIV not to accept these people as friends on Facebook unless they want to be subjected to their daft and dangerous arguments.

For a while I was, I admit, interested in what they think and why. But they are so warped and bend the facts so much in a crazy way I am now totally tired of hearing it .And I am not at all vulnerable to their persuasion.I fear others may be.

First of all, I want to say this: I can guarantee you that none of you, especially Seth Kalichman know a damn thing about Kim Bannon or her situation. I DO! I've known Kim since late 2007 and the one thing that her so-called childhood friend failed to tell anyone in these blogs is that KIM DID NOT EAT! Yeah, you heard me right! Kim barely ate enough to keep a bird alive. When she did eat, it was usually small amounts of dried vegetables or nothing at all. When we went out to "dinner" she ate nothing at all because it wasn't "Raw foods". She had maintained this type of diet for years in fact. Kim was malnourished to say the least and I often pleaded with her to eat something of substance. She wouldn't. It has to be considered that malnutrition has played a BIG part in her decline. I'm also going to call her so-called friend on the BS about her father because Kim often told me that he was verbally abusive towards her and her mother. Her "friend" was not around when Kim was going through all the hell that she went through with being attacked, having her skull busted open, and basically being treated like shit by her ex-husband (who I still think was involved with the attempt on her life). So before you start ranting about denialist this and denialist that, you people need to be aware of the facts! And the fact is this...except for a few people such as myself, Kim had no support through all these years....not even from her parents...because all they did at the time when she was well was to talk about her getting sick. 18 years of bullshit is enough to make anyone sick and the fact that she was able to last this long on her own says a lot about her character. Like I said, get your facts straight before you start talking crap about someone you don't know....and above all...don't use my friend in your fucking "celebration"

With friends like me what, Seth? Go ahead and say it....because I know what you are hinting at. Don't you find it strange at all that during 18 years, Kim never suffered from any opportunistic infection at all which is supposed to be the hallmark of AIDS? So what is it? is it 7 years..15 years...18 years...20 years? Ever consider the possibility of scar tissue forming on the brain from having her head bashed in? No....no one does because she had a "positive" hiv test. Kim also had generalized warts on her fingers....want to deny that that in itself can cause a "positive" test? Seems like everyone that does a blog about "denialists dying" has something to celebrate. I seriously doubt that the scientist who are questioning the "hiv theory" are trying to commit heinous acts. Looking at Gallo's track record and the fact that Montagnier keeps flip flopping in his opinion should throw up a red flag. I also doubt that anyone on here has ever taken a look at the original paper that Gallo submitted for his "proof" and has seen all of the editing that he did right before he submitted it. Personally speaking, I would trust Duesberg before I ever trusted anyone with the "ethics" of Gallo.

There is no "rumor," there was a Facebook page called "A Prayer for Kim Bannon" run by the friends that were visiting her in the assisted care facility, the page was only set to private after people started posting stupid comments about her illness. As Farber makes clear in her message board posts, Kim Bannon's family is also extremely angry about the role of AIDS denial in their daughter's illness.

WiseguyI have not heard from Kim's family. I try to leave them alone. They have enough to deal with. But it is unlikely that she is doing any better. No one ever said that it is never too late to start treatment. In Kim's case, it sounds very late. Her story is a real heart ache. She was used and exploited by the AIDS Deniers in the worst way. One day her story will be told.Thanks for asking.

i BEG TO DIFFER. I have only heard of Kim Bannon today. Yet, for the past ten years I have been going through what she went through, only I was taking the HAART medications. I am waiting to see what happens since I atopped taking them a year ago, befor emy liver and kidneys failed!

Kim is a very great friend of mine. I am sorry that she has left her body because we will miss her as that incarnation. Kim believed in getting another body and continuing this eternal life. This is what she believed when I knew her. I hope she picks up a healthy body and has a grand time.

this is very sad. but it is completely false to say 300 000 people in africa died due to aids denialism.to have imformed that many of a reason not to take arvs, you would need a huge media campaign. while the row between opposing views was in action , in parallel , there was a very large ongoing campaign to find the money and develop the infrastructure to provide meds to this no of people. the row did not prevent 300 000 people from receiving treatment.

Before they die they were referred to as murderers and after death victims. You want us to be outraged and then be full of sympathy so that we fund your cause which does not involve providing a safe vaccine, safe treatment or cure? It is no surprise that the deaths to vaccine trials, AZT, IRS and suicides are excluded in these attacks.

Before they die they were referred to as murderers and after death victims. You want us to be outraged and then be full of sympathy so that we fund your cause which does not involve providing a safe vaccine, safe treatment or cure? It is no surprise that the deaths to vaccine trials, AZT, IRS and suicides are excluded in these attacks.

As a layman without any scientific knowledge or experience (so the majority of the developed world) I find it appalling and almost laughable at a denialists ability to deny correlation between early death and infection. Using rational thought as the basis for most of my decisions in life, I find it confusing and disheartening that anyone would consider all denialists that are HIV+ to be ill due to stress or allergies. The majority of these positive denialists appear to be stuck in the denial stage of grief and refuse to accept their fate. What is truly sad is the ferverant attempt to take advantage of the truly ill and hopeless. Hopefully this denialists trend is on its way out.

Even though Kim died by AIDS related causes, it's remarkable the long time she remained healthy after her diagnosis. From her letter, it seems she had a very healthy life style, which I assume was the main reason.

Kim Bannon was diagnosed HIV positive in 1992 and passed away in 2011? She lived nearly 20 years (or at least 20 years, if it takes at least 1 year to detect HIV in the blood after infection) without any treatment (at least, none in the conventional sense). The doctor in this very article stated, "Dr. Sweet told Kim that without proper treatment she would develop the full spectrum of AIDS within five to seven years and die soon thereafter. " So I guess 13-15 years is considered "soon thereafter" to a doctor? The more stories of people like Kim Bannon I read/hear, the more I realize that doctors and health care professionals lied to me growing up. Growing up in the late-80s/early-90s, I was told that "you only need to sleep with someone 1 time to get infected with HIV. Without proper treatment, you will die within a year or two; and with proper treatment you will die within 3 to 4 years." Everyone that took AZT for their HIV infection is now dead. Instead of blindly trusting the medical community, the majority of people state that the AIDS denialists are the crazy ones. Whenever a drug like AZT or Vioxx kills thousands/tens of thousands of people, what actions are taken by doctors? Do they apologize? Do they look at new drugs more skeptically? No - they pretend like nothing happened and enthusiastically push the next new wonder drug. I've lost almost all respect for doctors and the medical community.

And I don't blame you....if you notice throughout the history of this whole thing, every time a new drug was introduced it was always touted as "safer and with fewer side effects"....not from what I can tell. I've read quite a few testimonials from people that believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS and take the drugs...and their stories all tend to be the same...Liver Damage, Kidney Stones, Steven Johnsons Syndrome, Major organ failure....and when you look at the warning labels from all of these drugs throughout history...not a damn thing has changed. "Oh you will still shit your guts out from taking these pills, but not as much!" "Your liver will still become a shriveled useless pile of shit,but not as much!" "You will still be in agony and feeling like you want to die, but look at how long you'll get to do it before these drugs turn you into a wasted pile of flesh".....yeah sounds like something I would want to do...NOT! Newer, faster, and improved.....sounds like a Bill Gates slogan for Windows...and that is the same old piece of shit it always was too...maybe they should start calling these drugs HIV security updates...because they sure provide security to the people that make them. Since these drugs are touted as "safe and effective" (which we all know they are not, no matter what we believe) then maybe the people that make them should give us a demonstration by taking them themselves....doubt that will ever happen.

I am 56 years old, I was told I was HIV positive in 1984. I was told to get my house in order as I would be dead in two maybe three years. Over the years my T cell count is normal, normal CD4, and my viral load has always been undetectable. I live in Canada, but my blood has been sent to Boston for study and to Winnipeg. I was asked for my blood because of being unusual. I had an aids specialist in Toronto at the General, but was asked approx. 15 years ago not to come to him anymore, as I was not sick enough to come back when I was sicker. I asked him why people like me are not being studied, no answer. I have offered my self up for study, but that has only happened once. It was a plasma phoresis study, and it was to be done in three different segments, I did only one part, I was not told why, but the researching team well, seemed like they were somehow upset with me. I believe that I may have been HIV neg. as a sample was required again for HIV testing, but I was never told anything. I have never been on medication, because I was never sick, and my doctors have told me over the years with my cell counts it would be un- ethical to put me on meds at this time. So I have been often wondering when will I get sick. I am not a denialist, but I have often wondered what is up, something is not right. I am an HIV positive person who is not sick, and nobody seems to want to look at that. I am 28 years with knowing. Unless you are like me, I can not tell you all the emotional roller coaster of a ride I have gone through. Let stop name calling, and really look for the truth.

I have been on HAART treatment, religiously the first three years and intermittently thereafter, they didn't make me better. I turn three shades darker than black (which I am by birth) and developed rashes, anemia, dementia and only God knows what else until I abandon the them altogether 8 months ago.

As I understand neurological issues are not AIDS defining diseases. How could ARVs help her recover from that? does any body know that? nor are Parkinson's like tremors or slurred speech AIDS related conditions. Does any one know her diagnosis before speculations abound as to how ARVs could have saved her?

I should be more suspicious in my words. What I'm saying is in AIDS patients appear to have changed over the years and that more AIDS patients that the causes of death MAY be failing from effects caused by long term contact to ARVs.

It´s understandably difficult for people without scientific training, and more importantly RELEVANT scientific training, to distinguish between the real and the unreal in the context of AIDS and/ or HIV.

There are some facts which I would wish pointed out to those who feel doubt or confusion about this issue vis-a-vis their health:

1. HIV is a virus. 2. The susceptibility of individuals to any given virus varies in the same way as the susceptibility to sunburn - some people burn quickly, some burn more slowly, depending on their genetic constitution. 3. The HIV virus has been photographed millions of times over, in hundreds of different laboratories all over the world. 4. Good nutrition generally helps avoid infections and/ or shorten the duration of those infections, leaving aside the effects of one´s genetic constitution on said infections.5. Good nutrition cannot prevent infections 100% of the time.6. Nutritional state is a FACTOR in the disease process, it is not the only factor.7. Medicines often have side effects, sometimes unpleasant or even fatal e.g. anaphylactic shock due to an allergy to e.g. penicillin.8. People react to medicines in slightly different ways, depending on their genetic constitution AND the physiological state of the body.9. Pharmaceutical companies are companies. Companies exist to make money.10. Money is given to the company in return for products or services.11. Any argument based on AZT or its derivatives must take into account the fact that AZT is a single compound, and that AZT alone will lose its effectiveness over time given that the virus, as part of its proliferative cycle, generates thousands of variants. This is why HAART has been so successful - it is a COMBINATION of medicines, targeting several points in the proliferative cycle of the virus, making it much more unlikely that any one variant will have all the necessary features to sidestep each of the individual medicines.12. A person who becomes infected with HIV may live a long time without symptoms, or may develop symptoms quickly, may progress to AIDS at a slower or faster rate, again in line with his/her genetic constitution.13. Some individuals lack certain genetic features which the virus in all of its forms to date must exploit in order to successfully infect an individual. These people are immune to AIDS - they cannot die from it, since the virus cannot replicate effectively in their bodies. These fortunate individual are called non-progressors.

14. The idea that all, or even most, people who become infected by HIV, have somehow been misled or lied to by the entire structure of the 21st century medical establishment, by all the doctors, by all the scientists working in this field, is absurd.14. The idea that the world is somehow against you is absurd, but fairly common.15. This issue is about life or death. Death from AIDS is slow and agonizing. Death from the effects of the medicines holding off the AIDS state may be slow and agonizing. 16. The odds of dying from AIDS are extremely high, whereas the odds of dying from medicines are low. 17. People who rely solely on scientific papers from the 80s as the basis of their argument are relying on the scientific community´s early attempts to understand and combat a totally new disease.18. The science of 2013 has made extraordinary advances over that of 1983, just as the science of 2043 will have made extraordinary advances over that of 2013. But we live in 2013, so this is the best we have to work with at the moment.19. Would you risk near-certain agonizing death over possible agonizing death?20. Ignoring scientific consensus, specifically repeatedly-and-independently-verified consensus, is rather foolish. It is like claiming that electrons do not carry an electrical charge, or that disease is caused by evil spirits.21. Religion takes many forms - it was the first attempt of mankind to understand the universe. Religion was the first science.22. The first hammer was a rounded piece of rock.23. Science is the evolved form of religion, that is to say, it is at once what was the essence of religion - to explain - and more....specifically, it also contains that which religion cannot do: adapt.24. The inability to adapt is a to be left behind in the process of evolution.25. Rejection of the scientific consensus, as long as that consensus is based on good scientific practice, is something that some individuals will always do, as it is their nature. 26. When you´re seriously ill, you seek medical treatment.27. When you seek medical treatment, you seek a qualified and respected doctor. Not a physicist, not a chemist, not a statistician, not a psychic, nor a policeman, but a medical doctor.

AIDS denial is what some people will always do. Others may be swayed into denial.

Read Ben Goldacre and keep up with Bad Science

Don't Get Fooled Again: The Skeptic's Guide to Life by Richard Wilson

AIDS Denialism on Law & Order

If you missed the Law & Order episode 'Retro' on AIDS denialism you will want to see the 2-minute Replay. This episode portrays a woman who denies she has HIV in which she and her infant daughter both die of AIDS. Sound familiar? Click the pic to watch.

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In Denying AIDS, Seth Kalichman provides a fascinating look into the thinking of those who propagate AIDS myths and the negative impact they have on our response to a deadly disease. He shows us how AIDS pseudoscience confuses the public and threatens sound public health policy. Anyone who cares about the global HIV/AIDS pandemic should read this book. Helene D. Gayle, Chair of the 2009 US Presidential Council on AIDS, CEO CARE USA, former Assistant Surgeon GeneralSeth Kalichman brilliantly uses a psychological lens to expose the wacky world that creates and maintains its presence despite the untold numbers of deaths and suffering it has caused. This book is a wake up call to policy makers and scientists, particularly in places most affected by the pandemic, that denialism must be confronted if we want to bring it under control. A must read for those who want to know more about the power and influence of pseudoscience.Michael Merson, Director, Global Health Institute at Duke University and Former Director of the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS.

This excellent book examines the detailed history of HIV/AIDS denialism as well as its damaging impact throughout the world. HIV/AIDS denialism and its proponents have created confusion when the clear provision of scientifically accurate communication was most needed.James Curran, Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Former Director of the CDC HIV/AIDS Division.

Seth Kalichman has superbly captured the contradictions inherent in AIDS denialism. He has deftly uncovered its religious-like fervor, its vociferous proponents and passionate opponents as well as its destructive force when legitimized by the South African President.Salim S. Abdool Karim, Member of the 2000 South African Presidential Panelon AIDS, Professor at University of KwaZulu-Natal, and Director of Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)

Royalties from Denying AIDS are donated to buy HIV treatments in Africa